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Spotted news about these on Guru3D.

Before anything else, I want to clarify something I've seen asked since the first news posts about these cropped up:

YES, THEY CAN USE ALL 4GB OF MEMORY.

The whole issue with the 970 cards and their 4GB of memory has to do with how NVIDIA disabled certain blocks of the 980 to make the 970. It has absolutely nothing to do with the amount! If the 980 was an 8GB card, and the 970 was advertised as the same, we would have eventually had a "7GB" meme instead of a "3.5GB" one.

These 960s are the same as the other 960s, but with bigger memory chips in use.

Here's a list of the ones I've seen so far:

Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition (ZT-90309-10M): (no dimensions provided) (1x8-pin PCIe power)
http://www.zotac.com/products/graphics- ... 9-10m.html
Zotac GeForce GTX 960 (ZT-90308-10M): (no dimensions provided) (1x8-pin PCIe power)
http://www.zotac.com/products/graphics- ... 8-10m.html

Asus STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-4GD5: (8.47" x 4.77" x 1.61") (21.52 x 12.12 x4.09 cm) (1x6-pin PCIe power)
http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/STRI ... DC2OC4GD5/

MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G: (267 x 139 x 40 mm) (1x8-pin PCIe power)
http://www.msi.com/product/vga/GTX-960-GAMING-4G.html

Gigabyte GV-N960WF2OC-4GD: (H=43mm, L=257mm, W=114mm (without bracket)) (also, completely full dual-slot port cluster, no external exhaust) (1x6-pin & 1x8-pin PCIe power)
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... x?pid=5401
Gigabyte GV-N960G1 GAMING-4GD: (H=43mm, L=295mm, W=114mm (without bracket)) (also, completely full dual-slot port cluster, no external exhaust) (1x6-pin & 1x8-pin PCIe power)
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... x?pid=5400

The early reactions I've seen are that the cards might not have enough horsepower to run at resolutions that would benefit from extra video memory, however I think this is a pretty old-school way of thinking: more memory isn't only useful at higher resolutions. The extra video memory will also be really useful for higher-quality textures, additional geometry data, etc. The Xbox One and PS4 have 8GB of memory for the whole system, and depending on you who ask anywhere from 4-6GB of it is used for video. So while having 4GB of memory on a GT 730 might not make sense, I think a 960 with 4GB of memory would be useful in newer games developed with these platforms in mind, even if you're "only" running in 1080p.

That said, I also don't know how much benefit we'll see with current games - I have a feeling this is only going to be beneficial in the future.

So, TR gang, how about a review once these are available in North America?

With the massive textures being used nowadays, 4GB seems like a reasonable minimum. 2GB on the 960 seemed a little light, like the Radeon 7850 1GB version from back in The Day. Thing is, if they charge $30 extra for the memory, we're getting back into Radeon R9 290 prices, and at that point the Radeon looks like a better deal.

Yeah, after returning my 970 [couldn't stand the coil whine] I considered buying a 960, but the price with 2GB of RAM made me hesitate. And now we're in a weird spot in the middle of the GeForce 900 series release, with the Radeon 300 series "coming soon", so unless the price on the 4GB cards is right about $200 (and the 2GB cards drop below $200), I may still hesitate, just to see how both product lineups look once everything is out.

I'll be interested in what prices will be. But since I'm in hurry to upgrade I think I will wait see if the GTX 960 ti version shows up and how it prices out. Kinda makes me wonder how that will work pricewise if a ti version shows up and it's 4 Gb...
But for now I'm leaning towards a 970 due to the fact I want to run 120+ fps.

I just hope this causes the price of the 960 2GB to drop. There's too big of a gap in nvidia's current line up. Its not uncommon to find a GTX 750 Ti 2GB on sale for $100 (usually with MIR, but sometimes not), yet the 960 2GB has yet to make it below $200 or $180 after MIR. They don't even advertise any other GPUs between these on their website any more. Yet AMD has several competent cards in this price range. I just want to see some more competition.

I'm surprised that nobody has released a 970 with 8GB yet, giving you 7GB of useful memory, and plenty of headroom.

Me too - listing it as a 7GB card might be an easier sell for some people than calling it 8GB*, and with that much video memory, I don't think anyone would mind.

Given how these 4GB 960s are all launching at around the same time, though, I wonder if it's something controlled by NVIDIA - as in, "no, you can't launch 8GB 980/970 cards yet (for whatever reason)".

* - not all 8GB running at full speed

I'm inclined to wait for 965/960ti as 960 is a little weak for 1920x1200 and 970 is overkill, not to mention the whole memory thing. The Strix looks really good though, so if Nvidia doesn't get on with it by the time Witcher 3 comes out I may just go for the 970.

The price of these 4GB ones needs to wiggle down a bit here. They are being listed at £199.99 for the cheapest one (a 2GB 960 starts at £149.99). This puts it awfully close to the £230 needed for the cheapest GTX 970, or just £220 needed to get the cheapest R9 290.

Seems pointless to recommend them to anyone when much faster options exist for as little as £20 more.

EVGA has US prices on their site now, and the 4GB version is going for +$40 over the 2GB version. If this is really going to be NV's mid-$200s card, it is a bit disappointing because there are only specific cases where the added VRAM makes a big difference.

MadManOriginal wrote:

EVGA has US prices on their site now, and the 4GB version is going for +$40 over the 2GB version. If this is really going to be NV's mid-$200s card, it is a bit disappointing because there are only specific cases where the added VRAM makes a big difference.

Way too expensive. They need to push it down to $200 and drop the 2GB version to $160-$180.

Its more likely that this will happen after the 370X is released though.

MadManOriginal wrote:

EVGA has US prices on their site now, and the 4GB version is going for +$40 over the 2GB version. If this is really going to be NV's mid-$200s card, it is a bit disappointing because there are only specific cases where the added VRAM makes a big difference.

Honestly I think the market will force them to drop the 2gb gtx 960 and then the 4 gb gtx 960 to reasonable levels quickly. I'm hoping the gtx 960 drops to 170-180ish while the 4 gig version will be 210 or so. Of course I'm not in the market for a new videocard, so can make all the predictions in the world.

There is a fair amount of space between $250 and $330 (960 4GB and 970), but the regular 960 might drop a bit, yeah. They could have a card at $40 intervals though: $210, $250, $290, $330.

ozzuneoj wrote:

Way too expensive. They need to push it down to $200 and drop the 2GB version to $160-$180.

Its more likely that this will happen after the 370X is released though.

Yeah, I'd bet on an NVIDIA price drop once there's a new AMD card to compete with the 960, but not before that. Probably right around the time they launch a product in between the 960 and 970 (965? 960ti?). Which, honestly, I thought was going to happen with the 960 launch - a full version with 1280sps (960ti), and a slightly cut-down one with 1024 (960).

I suppose they could cut GM204 down a little further, to 1536SPs, and sell it as a 3GB/6GB card, and call it the 965. It wouldn't be a huge step down from the 970 - might just kill 970 sales, depending on the price - but unless they've got another GPU up their sleeves there's a pretty big gap between the 960's full GPU and the cut-down GM204 in the 970 that can only be filled by further cutting down GM204.

GM206 doesn't have the fill-rate and shading power which 4GiB VRAM usage becomes commonplace. GM206 is marginally faster than a crippled GK104 chip and GK104 came mostly in 2GiB configurations. 4GiB units were excusive to 680 and 770s (fully enabled GK104s).

GM206 4GIB look as silly as Radeon 9200 256MiB and Radeon X1300 1GiB of yesterday.

If you want to believe the info here http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-390x-nvidia- ... enchmarks/ a 960Ti slots in exactly halfway between the 960 and 970, but if it is based on the GM204 chip, NV won't want to price it too cheap because profits. The yield on GM204 must be pretty good given the minimal amount the 970 is cut down for die harvesting, so a 960Ti based on it will be to fill a market need, not a die harvesting need. It all depends upon how well AMD cards perform at each price point.

Oh, Mr Debbie Downer Krogoth has posted witht he same thing he's spamming everywhere. He is only half right because there are games that can use a high amount of VRAM for loading higher res textures and assets while not needing to draw more triangles or whatever. The last time this debate happened it was with the GTX 770 2GB vs 4GB. Actual testing showed that the advantage was nil in virtually every case, and the 960 is of similar-ish performance so it will only be very specific cases when it shows an advantage. I don't see the 960 4GB being worth $40 more, but it's not the same as low-end cards with excessive VRAM either.

No, I have been on the scene for years and seen the whole you need more VRAM shenanigans card being played. You always get GPU for the here and now. You never get a GPU based on future-proofing.

960 4GiB is a poor choice at best for the here and now because the applications and situations that utilize more than 2GiB of VRAM are beyond what the 960 can handle. In the foreseeable future, by the time 4GIB of VRAM becomes needed not just a luxury. The 960s will be hopeless out of date and the talk of the town will be Pascal and beyond.

960 is meant be a direct replacement to 760 in terms of performance while being cheaper to make. It is targeted at gamers who are running at 2Megapixels while being on a budget. The last place where increasing VRAM requirements become an issue.

GDDR5 is so darn cheap and plentiful that throwing in denser chips only increases the production cost by a trivial amount. It is a great way to increase sale towards gamers who don't know any better and still think more VRAM = better! When performance is dedicated by what inside the silicon.

So Newegg has a couple models in stock now (Gigabyte and EVGA) and they're sitting at $240.

That's about $40 too expensive, IMO. I was really hoping to see a drop on the 2GB models as an "early shot" in the next generation of GPU wars. Ah well.

Krogoth wrote:

960 4GiB is a poor choice at best for the here and now because the applications and situations that utilize more than 2GiB of VRAM are beyond what the 960 can handle. In the foreseeable future, by the time 4GIB of VRAM becomes needed not just a luxury. The 960s will be hopeless out of date and the talk of the town will be Pascal and beyond.

960 is meant be a direct replacement to 760 in terms of performance while being cheaper to make. It is targeted at gamers who are running at 2Megapixels while being on a budget. The last place where increasing VRAM requirements become an issue.

GDDR5 is so darn cheap and plentiful that throwing in denser chips only increases the production by a trivial amount. It is a great way to increase sale towards gamers who don't know any better and still think more VRAM = better! When performance is dedicated by what inside the silicon.

You're still spewing this garbage? I told you before, it's nonsense, you know? You should quit saying nonsense, useless things. ( ｀ー´)ノシ

4GB VRAM is already needed by many games which the GTX 960 can run in 1080p resolution. It's nothing about "future-proofing".

Resolution has a small effect on VRAM usage compared to game textures. Having a faster GPU core doesn't help if you cannot fit the game resources into local memory! (´・ω・｀)

Resolution has a direct impact on memory usage. It used to determine what kind of resolution your graphical card could handle back when memory capacity where tiny compared to today's standards (2-8MiB)

As you increase resolution, you also need more fill-rate, shading power. Increasing texture assets also has this effect.

The problem is that GM206 silicon simply doesn't have the power to handle situations when 4GiB of VRAM becomes an necessity not just a silly luxury without becoming a slide-show. When that time does come, the 960 will be out of date and there will be new players on the block.

Throwing more memory than what a GPU can realistically utilize is one of the oldest tricks to help move product. Because the majority of the PC gamers out there still think bigger number = better!

Back when I bought my GTX 660 the common consensus was one gig was enough... Now a year later I'm regularly using 1.5 gig when gaming. If I was going to buy a 960 and I was going to keep it for more than a year I would definitely get the 4 gig.